It's been a while, but now we're back with our brand new IBM XIV Host Attachment Kit 2.0.0!

You probably noticed that we made the jump to version 2.0.0, and for a very good reason: We have an exciting new feature we've been developing for the last 6 months - xiv_host_profiler.

xiv_host_profiler introduces a new approach in the way we provide support to hosts connected to XIV systems. The utility gathers information about your host's configuration, analyzes it against a set of best-practice rules, and enables pre-emptive identification of storage connectivity problems. And this is exactly why we recommend running it on a regular basis.

This feature is also tightly integrated into our latest XIV System release 11.2. By default, when using xiv_host_profiler, the collected information gets uploaded to your XIV System for further analysis. This ability will assist our technicians to ensure your hosts' health before commencing XIV System upgrades or other procedures.

For privacy reasons, the information collected by xiv_host_profiler is only related to your host's storage connectivity status - items such as the host's HBA model, installed OS version and the configuration state of the multi-path framework.

After collecting the information, xiv_host_profiler is also able to analyze it against a bundled set of rules:

The rules against which we analyze the host's configuration will be updated regularly and can be downloaded fromFix Central.

As mentioned before, it's best to run xiv_host_profiler at least once a week (in order to keep the data as up-to-date as possible). We provide an easy way to do so - simply run 'xiv_host_profiler --create-scheduled-task'.

As usual, you can read more about xiv_host_profiler (and other HAK utilities) in the Host Attachment Guide and Release Notes, as well as in the man pages included in the HAK package (how? simply run 'man xiv_host_profiler').

We believe HAK 2.0.0 and the included xiv_host_profiler will further improve on the way we support our storage systems and the hosts connected to them. We'd love to hear more from you about your needs and expectations in the comments.

In the meantime, you can download yourself a copy of the Host Attachment Kit for your favorite host's operating system, right here.

Once again, we are proud to announce the release of the latest IBM XIV Host Attachment Kit 1.10.0.

The main feature of this release is Windows Server 2012 support. From this version onward, HAK is fully compatible with your new & shiny installation of Windows Server 2012. Go ahead and take it for a spin!

As part of our ongoing efforts to improve ease of use, we have translated the Windows Installer of HAK to Japanese as well, for the benefit of our Japanese speaking users. More languages to follow.

In addition to the above, we have also resolved several bugs and known issues from previous versions, including among others:

Increased reliability in regard to volume size reporting in xiv_devlist

Improved stability during the configuration phase of iSCSI connections on Solaris

Path counts are reported more accurately in xiv_devlist on HP-UX

We have resolved a known issue in xiv_syslist on HP-UX, regarding XIV System modules and ports connected to the host

It's HAK release time again !!As part of our ongoing efforts to keep the IBM XIV Host Attachment Kit up to date and provide enhanced and new functionality, we are proud to announce the latest Host Attachment Kit version 1.9.0.

In this new version we have added support for several new platform versions:Solaris 11, the recently released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3 and the latest AIX 5.3, AIX 6.1 and AIX 7.1 Service Packs which introduce IBM XIV LUN 0 support.

But we did more than that. We have also enhanced the current HAK functionality by providing our UNIX & Linux users with manual pages accessible by using the 'man' command. Now you can access the documentation for each HAK command by executing 'man <HAK command>'.

In addition, in AIX OS, 'xiv_attach' is now capable of automatic discovery of connected XIV systems and host definition on the connected XIV, by utilizing the latest AIX 5.3, AIX 6.1 and AIX 7.1 SP, in which XIV LUN0 support was added. This aligns the XIV support in AIX OS with that of other supported OS-s. Moreover, LUN0 support also introduces a new HAK utility to AIX HAK users - 'xiv_syslist' , which you can read more about here.

The log collection utility, 'xiv_diag', was enhanced and now can be executed in unattended mode by providing the command with the destination path for the compressed log collection package as a command line argument.

Finally, additional bugs and known issues were resolved, and you can read more about them in the Release Notes.

Follow this link to download the installable or portable packages and access the release documentation.

We are happy to announce our newest edition of the IBM XIV Host Attachment Kit, version 1.8.0. This release includes a new utility and support for new operating system versions, as well as several bug fixes and code infrastructure improvements.

And now, let's dive into the details:Starting with our cool new utility, called "xiv_syslist"... This new tool in the HAK will provide great assitance to host and storage administrators, by exposing useful storage array details from the server/host point of view. What kind of details? Without turning this post into a User Guide, the list of storage array details includes (for each array connected to the host): Array name, Array Serial, Management IPs, Connected Modules & Ports, Connectivity Types, Host Name Defined and Host Ports Definition State. The output can be formatted as xml or csv, as well as regular text output.The "xiv_syslist" utility is available on all platforms supported by the HAK.

We could not finish without mentioning the issues that were fixed in this version. While several minor issues have been fixed, the most encompassing one is an infrastructure revamp for the "xiv_devlist" utility, that has fixed many issues in the utility on all the supported platforms.

The XIV Host Software team is happy to announce the 2011Q4 release of the XIV Host Attachment Kit, version 1.7.1.

Note that this is mostly a maintenance release with a couple of improvements. Upgrade is recommended but not mandatory. Go ahead and take HAK for a spin and tell us what you think in the comments below. In the provided link, you can get HAK 1.7.1 for all supported platforms, Host Attachment Guide, and platform-specific Release Notes.

Release Highlights

We recommend checking out the full list of changes and known issues for a specific platform in the corresponding Host Attachment Kit 1.7.1 Release Notes, available in the link above.

And we didn't stop there...We've invested a lot in internal test and development improvements. Most notably we've increased the automated test coverage and improved our automated build environment. This allows us to provide you with a better tested, higher quality product.